"staycation", "daycation"

[Baker, John]

        A little earlier for "daycation" is this example from an
unexpected source, Diabetes in the News (via Westlaw), copyright 1990 by
the Ames Center for Diabetes Education.  The article is by Maury
Rosenbaum, who also published (and, for all I know, still publishes) a
quarterly newsletter, "The Diabetic Traveler."  All typos are original,
though I don't know if they're original to Diabetes in the News or
Westlaw.

        <<Daycations Can Provide Fast Relief From Everyday Stresses

Take a daycation to reduce your stress and add to your enjoyment of
life.

Daycation is one of the newest travel concepts.

Quite simply, daycation is an extension of the recent trend of taking
mroe frequent, but shorter vacations.

It started with weekend getaways, used by Americans who wanted to "get
away from it all." It even now includes "overnights" that last no more
than 24 hours.

. . . .

Because of your schedule, your travel budget, or even your desire to
gain vacation benefits on a frequent, albeit, short basis, daycations
might be your best bet.

. . . .

AS a person with diabetes, you neeed to make special plans when you take
a daycation--just as you do when you take a weeklong trip.>>



John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Benjamin Zimmer
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 4:42 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "staycation", "daycation"

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:
>
> "Staycation" is now taken enough for granted that it forms the
> springboard for a new and presumably even more short-lived formation.
> A current radio commercial for an amusement park urges listeners to
> "forget the STAYcation, and come for a DAY-cation".  Checking on
> google, though, I find 14,500 raw hits for "daycation" with the same
> sense (a vacation to be accomplished in a single day, presumably with
> no sleepover needed).  Google, perhaps thinking of traffic jams and
> gas prices, helpfully asks if I meant "damnation".

"Daycation" actually predates "staycation" in the databases.

1993 _Toronto Star_ 1 June A6 (Factiva) Canada's Wonderland, on the
other hand, was a winner from last year's loser weather and expects to
be again. "We had a record year," said spokesperson Scott McConnell.
"Because people took less driving vacations, we became an attractive
'daycation,' " McConnell said.

Earliest we've seen for "staycation" is from 1999:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0807a&L=ads-l&P=15562


--Ben Zimmer

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